Improving safety culture is a long and difficult process, but it is possible.
And it’s worth it – prevention is a smart business strategy and simply the right thing to do.
Here are a few suggestions.
7 Suggestions to Improve Your Safety Culture
1. Establish C-Level Buy-in
Establishing CEO support for your safety programs is mission critical. The effectiveness of your program will drastically improve with support from the top. Once support from the C-level is communicated to all levels of the organization, you will have the attention and resources you need to develop a best in class program.
2. Collect Data to Drive Improvement
An honest assessment of where your current program stands needs to be taken before you can put a plan in place to improve it. Perception surveys as well as quantitative measurements such as incidence rates, severity rates, OSHA recordables, and employee safety training hours are a good place to start.
For a quick litmus test, check out our 25 Signs Your Safety Culture Is Awesome – if these statements aren’t true about your organization, you have work to do!
3. Establish a Team and Set Goals
Your safety culture needs direction. A team can work to provide direction, set goals and keep an ongoing commitment to enhanced safety a high priority in the organization.
Set a goal of zero. This can be a game changer for your company, just as it was for Schneider Electric, the 2011 winners of the Green Cross for Safety Medal.
After accepting the award, Chris Curtis (CEO of Schneider Electric) said that, “We’ve always had a very good safety record, but for us, the breakthrough came in 2003. That year, our new president, my predecessor, set a goal of zero injuries.” (Disclosure: Schneider Electric is a client of ours)
The standard for your safety culture must be set high. Set a goal of zero.
4. Identify Safety as a Core Value and Create a Supportive Environment
Safety needs to become a core value in your company. This is not something that goes on a policy sheet just for the sake of appearances. Your safety culture needs to be lived out by every employee at every moment of every day! It truly must become a core value and the first priority in every situation.
Policies and procedures need to be implemented to create a supportive environment for your safety culture.
5. Communicate and Empower
Communicate, communicate, communicate. This keeps safety top of mind and reinforces management’s commitment to a health and safety culture as a strategic business objective and core value.
From the bottom of the organization all the way to the top, safety is everyone’s responsibility. As such, employees must be empowered with the proper resources and tools necessary to be effective at finding and fixing safety issues.
6. Evaluate your progress
Keep track of your progress and look for improvement opportunities. Track both leading and lagging indicators to decide where to focus your available resources.
Be sure to use your successes as a catalyst for change. Reward employees who exhibit the desired safety behaviors!
7. Stay proactive and drive continuous improvement
If you follow the principles above, there will be a time when your recordables will be driven close to zero. When this happens, it is important not to become complacent. Stay proactive! If there are less reactive accident investigations and root cause analysis to do, encourage the safety team and all employees to look out for near miss possibilities so they will be diligently searching for potential accident and MSD risk factors.
Setting a monthly goal/incentive that encourages employees to report more potential near miss risk factors is a way to raise the bar to create a more proactive safety culture.
Become the Safety Champion
Become the champion of your safety program, and keep chipping away at it. Your hard work will pay off!
Now over to you… what have you done to improve your safety culture? Have you had success in the past with the suggestions above?
Let us know in the comments below.
Check out the rest of the Safety Culture 101 series.
